The date on the first page was six months earlier.
Brandon stared at it as if the numbers might rearrange themselves if he waited long enough.
Tessa stepped closer.
“What is that?”
I didn’t answer her.
I laid Brandon’s deed on the hood of my rental car and placed my folder beside it.
The man in the navy suit leaned over both documents, his face tightening as he moved from one page to the other.
Brandon tried to laugh.
It came out thin.
“Clara loves paperwork,” he said.
“She always has.
It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means plenty,” I said.
Six months earlier, after a routine review with my attorney, I had changed the legal ownership structure of the farmhouse and its eighty acres.
The property had been removed from my individual ownership and transferred into a protected holding trust created specifically for the land, the farmhouse, the orchard, and the charitable use of the barn.
The transfer had been properly executed and recorded with the county.
From that date forward, I no longer owned the farmhouse personally.
The trust did.
And only the trustee acting under the trust documents had authority to sell it.
Brandon’s deed claimed that I, Clara, had personally transferred the property.
That alone made his paperwork useless.
But there was another problem.
I pointed to the signature.
“That isn’t mine.”
The man in the navy suit looked at Brandon.
Brandon’s jaw tightened.
Tessa spoke first.
“You’re being ridiculous.
Maybe you signed something and forgot.”
I looked at her.
“I forgot selling eighty acres of lakefront property?”
She said nothing.
Brandon snatched the deed off the hood.
“You gave me access to your files before,” he said.
“You told me to handle things when you were traveling.”
“I told you once to let a plumber into my apartment while I was traveling.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point.”
His face reddened.
For the first time since I arrived, the man in the suit took a step away from Brandon.
I noticed it immediately.
So did Tessa.
She turned toward him.
“Why are you backing up?”
He held both hands slightly away from his body.
“I was told the title was clear.”
Brandon snapped, “It is clear.”
“No,” I said.
“It isn’t.”
The man looked at the farmhouse beyond the gate, then at the papers in Brandon’s hand.
“What exactly did you tell him?” I asked Brandon.
Brandon’s eyes flicked toward Tessa.
That tiny movement told me more than his answer could have.
Tessa moved between us.
“This is getting blown completely out of proportion,” she said.
“The property wasn’t doing anything for you.
